


In the Thick of It

by Rhiannon87



Category: Uncharted
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the monastery level of the Uncharted 3 co-op game.</p><p>Elena's got a story in Colombia, Nate finds some ruins nearby to raid, and then everything goes merrily to hell. Features lots of shooting, daring rescues, explosions, Nate as the damsel in distress, and a fair amount of coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Thick of It

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to the fine people who helped me get this story into shape. beltsquid served as beta reader extraordinaire and provided the title. totally-not-a-mage and Caryl (starshone) provided character feedback.

Thunder cracked overhead, and Elena spared a moment to cast a withering glare at the roiling grey clouds. Of course it was about to start storming. Because it wasn’t like this day was going badly enough already.

She leaned around the large tree she was using for cover and peered out at the narrow path twisting away into the jungle. The drug lord’s main camp was the one place she had wanted to avoid on this trip, so of course, now that was where she needed to be. Although really, given her track record, it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise.

Two sentries were meandering up the path towards her, and Elena quickly ducked back into cover. They were armed—in her brief scan, she’d spotted pistols at their hips and the familiar wood stock of AK-47s over their shoulders—but not armored. Cargos and canvas jackets weren’t any kind of protection. The ones who’d attacked them initially had been in full body armor. Maybe Graciano’s operation wasn’t as well-off as she’d thought—Elena shook her head to silence the analytic journalist part of her brain. Figure out the story later. She had bigger problems right now.

She shrank back against the tree as the guards drew near, counting on the dense foliage and their own inattention to protect her. The men were discussing something as they passed. It could have been the impending storm, it could have been their recently acquired prisoner, or it could have been their plan to ambush her. Elena scowled and, not for the first time that day, silently cursed her limited knowledge of Spanish. She really needed to work on that. The guards continued up the path, and Elena waited until they were almost out of sight to start creeping out of her hiding place.

The path was empty by the time she reached it, and she hurried along the narrow strip cut into the dense jungle, her pistol in her hand and her senses tuned for the distant sounds of voices or footsteps. It was quiet, or as quiet as a jungle ever was. Her earpiece was quiet, too. No word from the others, which Elena took as a good sign. She had to. If they weren’t in position, this plan was never gonna work.

The lights of the main camp were just barely visible through the trees when the rain finally started. Elena heard it hit the canopy first, giving her just enough time to look up and mutter a curse under her breath before the downpour hit. She was drenched in seconds. Elena made a face and pushed her soaked hair out of her face, then continued towards the camp. The storm didn’t give her much of an advantage; sure, the guards might have a harder time hearing or seeing her, but she’d have just as much trouble detecting them.

Much as she hated to sacrifice speed, Elena stepped off the path and went back to picking her way through the jungle as she got closer to the camp. Too many guards, too many unfamiliar paths coming together, too much risk. It was slower, yes, but it didn’t do anyone any good if she got captured.

She crouched behind a large, fallen tree and scanned the walls of the compound. Graciano had made use of a natural clearing, bordered on one side by tall, moss-covered bluffs, with wood-and-canvas walls enclosing the rest of the camp. “Three, four... five, damn,” Elena muttered as she counted the guards patrolling the wall. Getting into the camp would be trouble enough, but the guards were their own special problem-- and not only because she was badly outnumbered. While Elena doubted Graciano would use conscripts as guards at his headquarters, there was no way to be sure, and she really didn’t want to kill anyone who might be another victim in this whole mess. Not if she didn’t have to.

So. Sneak past the guards, get past the wall, sneak through the compound, find the prisoner tents, rescue her husband from the psychotic drug lord, sneak back out, meet Sully and Chloe at the rendezvous point. “Right,” Elena muttered. “Here goes.”

*

_Miami, Florida - Eleven Days Earlier_

Elena heard Nate walk down the hall and into their bedroom, but she kept her attention on the papers spread out around her. It was a foolish hope, she knew that, but maybe if she ignored him he’d go be bored somewhere else and not—

Nate flopped down across the bed, almost landing on a large map of South America. “Whatcha doing?”

Well. So much for that. “Working,” Elena replied dryly.

“The studio finally decide on your story?”

“Mm-hm.” Elena glanced between a couple of the printouts and scribbled down a note to confirm which phone number was correct. “I'm going to Colombia, right around the border with Venezuela.”

“Really?”

Elena glanced over at him. “Uh, yes, really. Why?”

Nate shrugged. “One of the jobs Sully and I have been looking at is in that area. Some collector in Montreal wants us to raid a ruined temple or something.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be investigating a drug lord who’s operating in the region,” Elena said. “He’s been wreaking havoc down there for a while,” destroying villages, conscripting soldiers, torture, mass executions, the horrifying, sickening usual, “but there are rumors that he’s started to push into Venezuela. If I can prove he’s crossing borders, it becomes an international issue, and that might put some pressure on the local governments to actually do something about it.” Or possibly get the U.N. involved, although she wasn't holding out a lot of hope for that.

Nate made a noncommittal sound in response, then fell silent. Elena looked over to see him staring at her with wide, concerned eyes, his lips pressed together in a thin line. She sighed. “What?”

“That sounds incredibly dangerous and very, uh, Lazarevic-y,” Nate said all in a rush. “Although it does explain why the collector was interested. He said he wanted the artifacts removed for safekeeping.”

“I’m not planning on storming the main camp single-handedly,” Elena pointed out. “I’ve got a contact in one of the towns there. I’m just gonna go, get some footage of the region, interview some of the survivors, hopefully get the proof I need.”

“You going alone?” Nate asked.

Elena nodded, and he winced. She’d had a feeling he wasn’t going to like that, but quite frankly, it had been a hard enough sell getting her producers to agree to this story in the first place. And after what had happened in Nepal… well. She felt better when it was only her life that she was risking and responsible for. “If it’ll make you feel better, you and Sully can tag along on my half of the job, and I can come with you to the ruins,” Elena said.

“Chloe, too.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Chloe’s probably gonna be working with us on this one.”

Hm. That complicated things slightly. Nate and Sully would put up with pretending to be her camera crew for a few days, but she wasn’t sure how Chloe would take it. “We can work something out,” she replied diplomatically.

“Great. I’ll tell Sully to call the guy and we can start planning,” Nate said, looking delighted at the prospect of impending adventure. Elena grinned back. Yes, okay, it was for a good cause and very likely her half of the work would be depressing as hell… but an adventure in some jungle ruins would be fun. Just like old times.

Elena stretched her arms over her head, suddenly aware that she was hungry now that she wasn't buried in maps and statistics. She glanced at her watch and blinked. Later than she'd thought. “What do you wanna do for dinner?”

“I dunno. Pizza?”

She made a face. “We just had pizza two nights ago.” They really needed to get groceries. Maybe when they got back from this trip. “Does that Cuban place deliver?”

“No, but I can go get food since I have nothing better to do,” Nate offered and pushed himself upright.

Elena leaned over to give him a quick kiss. “Good husband.”

“I try.”

*

“Three layovers, Nathan,” Chloe complained from where she was draped over a chair in the common room of their hotel suite. It hadn’t exactly been cheap, springing for a two-bedroom suite for the four of them to share, but it had seemed both easier and safer, keeping everyone in one place. “Three. New York, Tulsa, and Mexico City before I finally got to Bogotá.” Chloe gestured at the mid-day city outside the windows, and Elena winced in sympathy. Their own flight from Miami had been direct, at least, and far shorter than Chloe's trip across the Atlantic.

Nate glanced up from the maps and charts he’d spread across the table. “We’ve had worse trips,” he pointed out.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she replied. “This better be worth it.”

“It’ll be fun!” Nate said.

“May I remind you that you used the same line when convincing Charlie and me to help with your little Marlowe job?” Chloe said dryly. “You need to work on your pitch, darling.”

Elena snorted and finished pouring the second mug of coffee. It took a little juggling, but she managed to get both mugs and a handful of cream and sugar packets balanced in her hands. “Here,” she said, setting one mug in front of Chloe. “Local caffeine.”

Chloe eagerly grabbed the coffee. “You’re a godsend, Sunshine,” she said. Elena just toasted her with her mug.

Nate frowned. “Where’s mine?”

“Over there,” Elena said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the coffee pot. Nate pouted, and Elena just gestured at Chloe. “Three layovers. Besides, you always say I make yours wrong.”

“You never add enough sugar,” he replied and pushed back from the table.

“Only because I prefer to actually taste the coffee,” Elena said.

Nate made a face at her while Chloe snickered into her mug. The door swung open, admitting Sully on a cloud of cigar smoke. “Got us a truck,” he announced. “Should be able to pick up the rest of the gear later today.”

Elena nodded. ‘Rest of the gear’ mostly meant black-market guns, probably purchased from the same people who supplied the local drug lords. Sully dropped into his seat at the table and dragged the ash tray closer. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked.

Nate returned to his seat with his mug. “Everything’s relatively close,” he said, pulling a map out from the mess of papers on the table. “Elena’s contact is in a town here,” he tapped a spot on the map on the edge of the jungle, “and the ruins are over this way, in the jungle.”

Sully nodded and leaned forward. “And this, uh, drug lord we’re supposed to be avoiding, whatever his name is--”

“Martín Graciano,” Elena said. “Technically, he claims this whole region,” she traced a large circle on the map, encompassing over a dozen towns and villages of varying size, along with the ruins, “but my sources say he doesn’t have it under complete control. He tends to conscript most of his foot soldiers from the settlements he raids, so it’s not like they’re especially willing or able.” She tapped another spot on the map, several kilometers into the jungle. “His main camp is supposed to be around here, to the south. The ruins are kind of close, but it's hard to move troops through the jungle.”

“We might run into a few patrols, but nothing too bad,” Sully said.

Elena nodded. “Exactly. Probably see more of them out by the villages, to be honest.”

“And this Graciano, he’s not interested in the treasure?” Chloe asked with a glance at Nate. “I’d rather not have a repeat of Nepal.”

Nate and Elena exchanged a look. “Not as far as I know,” Elena said. “Unfortunately for you three, there’s nothing to say he couldn’t have sent a raiding party to clean out the temple already.”

“The client’s pretty sure it’s still there,” Nate said. “Aurelio’s a Venezuelan expat living in Montreal, says he has lots of contacts in the region. He wants whatever relics might be left pulled out of the area for safekeeping.”

“Ah, so it’s a humanitarian job,” Chloe said with a smirk. Elena covered up her frown by taking a drink of coffee.

Nate shrugged. “Humanitarians don’t get paid nearly as well as we do.”

“True enough,” Chloe agreed. “So, we raid the temple while Elena gets her story?”

“Ah, no,” Nate said quickly. “I’m not—nobody’s going off by themselves. It’s too dangerous.”

Chloe raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t argue. As far as Elena knew, this was the first time Chloe had joined Nate for a job since the series of catastrophes and near-misses that had been his quest for Iram, so she probably hadn’t seen how that whole mess had changed him. Nate wasn’t nearly as willing to risk his life or the lives of his loved ones, not if it could be avoided. He’d come too close to losing everything, he’d admitted to Elena not long after leaving Yemen, and it just wasn’t worth it. Elena was just relieved to see that he was sticking to that, even now that he’d gotten back into adventuring.

“Besides, I don’t want to be left out of the temple raiding,” Elena added. Chloe huffed out a laugh as she picked up her mug to take another drink.

“Well, then, what’s first?” Sully asked.

“My story,” Elena said, at the same time that Chloe replied, “The temple.”

Elena raised her eyebrows at Chloe. “Uh-oh,” Chloe said lightly. Nate glanced back and forth between the two of them, while Sully just leaned back in his chair and took a drag on his cigar. “Elena, look--” Chloe began.

“Chloe, this is important,” Elena cut in, setting her mug down on the table.

Chloe arched an eyebrow at that. “More important than us doing _our_ job?”

“No offense,” Elena gestured at the trio of thieves, “but, yes. Graciano’s been destroying these people’s lives for almost a year now, and no one’s done anything.”

“Then are a couple of days really going to make a difference?”

“Yes,” Elena said. “It could save lives.”

Chloe sighed. “A journalist poking around is going to attract attention,” she said.

“And the four of us stomping around the jungle in Graciano’s backyard won’t?” Elena replied. “Either way, we’re probably gonna be noticed.” And she was not willing to let her story be the half of the trip that got sacrificed.

“All right, not to be rude,” Chloe started, pinching the bridge of her nose, “but I did not take the London-to- Bogotá flight from hell just so I could play camera crew for a few days. If I’d known we weren’t going for the treasure right away, I’d have gotten a better flight.”

Elena glanced at Nate, who looked mildly guilty, and winced. “Sorry,” she said. “We didn’t have a solid plan in place yet.”

“Okay, I know I said I didn’t want to split everyone up, but…” Nate leaned forward, gesturing at the others as he spoke. “What if Elena and I go out to the town, she gets her story, then you guys can come in after us, maybe scout out the ruins, and then we’ll all go out there together.” He shrugged. “At least this way if something happens, you two aren’t in immediate danger and can come rescue us.”

Sully nodded. “That’d give me time to negotiate better deals on the supplies,” he said. “Plus, we could do some, ah, reconnaissance while we’re in the city.”

Elena chuckled and rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure that the only recon Sully would be doing would be inside bars and hotel rooms. She glanced across the table to Chloe, who shrugged. “Well, it’ll give me a few days to get my head into this time zone, anyway,” she said. She pushed back from the table. “And on that note, I think I’m going to go pass out for a while. Get me something nice when you go pick up the guns, hm?”

Sully tossed her a two-fingered salute as she headed for the unclaimed bedroom. Elena picked up her mug and pushed her chair back as well. “I need to get some work done,” she said. “Since we’ll be heading out early tomorrow.”

Nate made a face at the world ‘early,’ but didn’t argue. Elena squeezed his shoulder, then headed for the bedroom she and Nate were sharing. “Just remember to get some supplies that aren't guns,” she called over her shoulder.

“Like what?” Nate asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. Sully laughed, and Elena just heaved a sigh and pushed the door open. Sully would make sure they came back with bottled water and compasses, if nothing else.

*

Elena woke to the sound of her name and the feeling of someone shaking her shoulder. “'m awake,” she mumbled and rubbed her eyes.

“Good, ‘cause I think we're a few minutes out from the town,” Nate said, nodding at the dirt road ahead of them. Elena straightened up and stretched as much as she could in the confines of the truck, then pulled the tie out of her hair to finger-comb it back into some semblance of order. Nate glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I'm impressed you were able to sleep, on these roads,” he commented.

“Mm.” Elena smirked at him. “Well, somebody kept me up way too late last night.”

He grinned. “You certainly weren't complaining.”

“True.” Elena rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the tension in her back. They'd left Bogotá about six hours ago, and most of those hours had been spent on unforgiving dirt roads. Still, with all the traveling she did, Elena had learned to sleep pretty much anywhere. She looked around in an attempt to get her bearings. The jungle was just visible on the southern horizon, a dark green smudge under the sky. Everything else was flat grassland, broken up by the occasional clump of trees.

Nate swore under his breath and eased off the gas. Elena looked back at the road to see a trio of openly armed individuals blocking their path. She and Nate glanced at each other, and Elena checked to make sure her pistol was loose in its holster. Nate took his hand off the gearshift long enough to make the same check on his gun, then brought the truck to a stop with about twenty feet between them and the guards. This close, Elena could see that two of the three were women, and all three were wearing mismatched, patchwork body armor.

The woman carrying a pistol, as opposed to the rifles the other two guards were carrying, headed towards the truck. “Think they're Graciano's people?” Nate asked.

Elena shook her head. “I doubt it,” she said. “I talked to Severo a couple days ago and everything was fine. I don't think he'd be able to take the town that quickly.” She hoped so, anyway.

The woman came up to Nate's side of the car and asked something in Spanish. Elena frowned. Her Spanish skills had only ever really reached conversational, and her work hadn’t required the language in the past few years. She’d gotten more than a little rusty. If the other person spoke slowly and used near-perfect grammar, she could keep up, but understanding normal, day-to-day speech was a little beyond her at this point.

“She wants to know who we are and why we're here,” Nate translated, glancing at Elena.

Elena sighed. “Tell her who I am and that I'm meeting with Yesenia Severo,” she said. “She's expecting us.”

Nate relayed the information. The woman nodded and pulled a radio off her belt, keeping her attention and her gun trained on the car while she spoke. Whoever was on the other end of the radio apparently knew what was going on, because the woman lowered her gun and waved her companions off the road. She said something to Nate-- Elena thought she caught the word for 'tree' in there-- then Nate thanked her and put the car in gear. “We're about a kilometer away from the town,” he said as they drove away. “I should park by the huge tree, and Yesenia will meet us there.”

Elena let out a relieved breath, then twisted around in her seat to grab her camera from the back. The approach to the village might be decent footage, and she could record a voiceover later. They passed a few burned-out buildings, probably farms, if she had to guess. Elena flipped off the camera as they reached the outskirts of the town proper and the aforementioned huge tree. A woman with short, dark hair and a pistol at her hip stood nearby, her arms folded as she watched them pull in.

As soon as the car stopped, Elena opened the door and hopped out, leaving Nate to kill the engine. “Yesenia?” she asked, switching her camera to her left hand and holding out her right. “Elena Fisher.”

Yesenia shook her hand and gave her a polite smile. “Good to finally meet you in person,” she said, her English heavily accented. “Thank you for coming.”

“Well, when Alvarez told me about what was going on here, I couldn’t just ignore it,” Elena replied.

The other woman’s smile turned a bit wry. “Pedro’s a good friend,” she said. “He talked to many journalists about Graciano. You are the only one who was interested.” Before Elena could come up with a response to that, Yesenia glanced past her to the truck. “Only two of you?”

Elena looked over her shoulder to see Nate slam the truck door behind him. “Two of our, ah, colleagues will be joining us in a few days,” she said. She gestured at Nate as he came up beside her. “This is my husband, Nathan Drake.”

“Just Nate’s fine,” he said and shook Yesenia’s hand.

She introduced herself, her eyes narrowed slightly. “Does he, ah, work with you?” she asked, looking back at Elena. 

“Not usually, no,” Elena said. Damn. They hadn’t really come up with a cover story for Nate and the others.

Nate gave her a winning smile. “I’m a historian,” he lied, not too obviously by Elena’s estimate. “There were some ruins in the area that seemed interesting, so I thought I’d tag along with Elena. We’ll check them out on the way back.”

Yesenia nodded, apparently buying the story, then tilted her head back towards the town. “If you want to bring your bags, I can take you to my house, show you where you’ll be staying.”

“Are you sure?” Elena asked, even as Nate went to back to the truck. “I don’t want to--”

Yesenia silenced her with a waved hand. “I have plenty of space,” she said. “It is my sister’s house, really, but she and her family left two weeks ago.” She smiled and shrugged. “And I would be a poor host if I let you sleep in your car.”

Elena took her bags from Nate, slinging the heavy laptop case over her shoulder with a faint wince. The laptop was one of the few pieces of equipment, along with the satellite phone and the camera, that she’d been able to pry out of the studio for this trip. The kid in IT had assured her the laptop was indestructible, which presumably explained why it weighed a ton.

Yesenia led them into the town, and Elena glanced around, mentally taking notes. There were a surprising number of people sitting outside houses or wandering the streets, given the time of day. And most of the people were armed, guns or machetes easily accessible. “You said your sister left,” Elena started, glancing at Yesenia. “Have a lot of people done that?”

She shrugged. “Not as many as you might think,” she said. “Most of us have been here for generations. And there are only a few who could afford to move to one of the cities.” She waved a hand at a small house, the porch and yard crowded with shrieking, laughing children. “Survivors from other villages,” she said. “When people from our town do leave, they move in.”

Elena nodded, about eight other lines of questioning already branching off in her mind. Yesenia brought them to a small house near what Elena guessed was the town center. The house looked like it had been recently cleaned, and Yesenia led them to a narrow bedroom off the main living area. “I know it’s small, but…” she trailed off with a shrug.

“It’s fine, thank you,” Elena said and immediately dropped the laptop bag on the bed. Right. She was gonna make Nate carry that when they left, put all those muscles of his to good use.

Yesenia nodded. “I will let you get settled, then,” she said. “Once you’re ready, I can show you around the town?”

“Sounds great,” Elena said. Yesenia disappeared back into the house, and Elena immediately set her other bag down so she could start digging through it. She needed her notebook, voice recorder, the spare batteries…

Nate chuckled and sat down on the bed. “Want me to get things settled here so you can go?” he asked.

Elena paused, her notebook in one hand and a handful of pencils in the other. “You don’t have to--”

“You’re, like, vibrating with excitement over there,” he said. “Go. Get your story. I’ll catch up with you later.”

She set her supplies on the bed and walked around to face him. “Thanks for coming with me,” she said, resting her hands on his shoulders. “I know this isn’t gonna be all that exciting for you.”

“Eh, there’ll be plenty of exciting later,” he said with a shrug. “I can catch up on my reading.”

“Is that why your bag felt like it was full of bricks?”

“Maybe.” He grinned, and Elena rolled her eyes. “I think I wedged a couple of shirts in there, too.”

“Oh, well, that's good,” she said. “I mean it, though. Thanks.”

Nate just smiled at her and reached up to pull her down for a kiss. “Have fun,” he said, then paused. “Er. As much fun as you can while touring a town full of refugees.”

“I'll do my best.”

*

Fun wasn't exactly the word Elena would have used to describe the next few days. Exhausting, grueling, at times heartbreaking, those would all be far more accurate. Talking to people who'd lost everything, seeing the burned wreckage where thriving villages once stood, looking out over mass graves and knowing that no one had done anything to stop it... It was draining. But someone had to get the story out. Make the world, or at least the Colombian government, see what was happening here. So yes, it was hard, but she still felt good when she collapsed into bed beside Nate at night.

Nate, for his part, mostly stayed in the town, though he didn't get much reading done. Once the local kids found out he was willing to join in on soccer games, they more or less adopted him. He tagged along on the drives out to distant villages, though, sitting perched on the roof of the car to keep watch. They had to dodge a few of Graciano's patrols, with sightings of the camouflaged trucks growing more frequent as the days passed, but they never moved into shooting range. As long as they didn't open fire, Elena didn't worry about it. Each village they passed through, she religiously checked their coordinates. Any sign of border crossing, and this went from a tragic human interest story to an international incident.

On their third evening there, Elena made her way down the near-empty street to Yesenia's house, her attention split between jotting down notes and watching where she was going. Yesenia had translated during an interview with a woman from one of the eastern-most villages that had been attacked. The woman's story had been horribly familiar: husband and sons conscripted, friends shot in the streets, homes burned. And it was all on the Colombian side of the border. Elena frowned. Graciano knew what he was doing, dammit. Unless he was crossing the border down in the jungle-- near-impossible to prove-- then he hadn't carried out any attacks in Venezuela.

Elena shook her head and tucked her notebook back in her bag. She wasn't giving up just yet. She'd double-check her coordinates once she was back inside. Maybe there was something she'd missed. The sound of giggling reached her as she drew closer to the house, and she slowed down, smiling a bit at the scene in front of her. Nate was sitting on the front steps of the house with his notebook open on his lap, surrounded by about five or six children. As she watched, he carefully tore a page out and passed it to the boy leaning over his right shoulder.

He glanced up when Elena approached and gave her a quick smile. “Hey,” he said. “I'll be inside in a minute, I've still got, uh,” he looked from side to side, “two pictures to do.”

She grinned back and climbed up onto the porch. “Have fun,” she said, waving at a couple of the kids who were peering at her curiously. Nate asked them something in Spanish as Elena shut the front door behind her.

Back in the bedroom, Elena flipped open her laptop and hooked the camera up to it to copy over the day's footage. She'd learned her lesson about having cameras in close proximity to Nate, and while she certainly hoped that there wouldn't be reason for this one to be destroyed horribly, it was always better safe than sorry. While the backup started, she checked her coordinates again. Then again, just in case she'd made a mistake the first time, even though she knew she hadn't. Graciano had kept his operation in Colombia. And in a region so remote, so sparsely populated, it would be hard to motivate the government to take action. Most of their attention was focused on dealing with FARC and the larger drug cartels further north. They'd made progress, but that did nothing to help the people here.

She glanced up as Nate slipped into the room. “Your fanclub meeting over?” she teased.

He laughed, looking a little sheepish, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “A couple of them saw me doodling and started making requests,” he explained.

Elena grinned and leaned over to give him a quick kiss, even while biting back a comment about how he was going to make a great dad someday. They'd talked about having kids, in a very abstract, sure-someday kind of way, but bringing the subject up in casual conversation tended to put a look of panic in Nate's eyes that Elena hated to see. They were doing better, since Yemen, a lot better, but... well, there were still some things that needed work.

Nate smiled back when they parted, then nodded at her laptop. “How's it going?”

She frowned at the screen and shrugged. “He hasn't left Colombia,” she said. “I've got a lot here, I can put together a solid story, but...”

“It's not what you wanted.”

She shook her head. “It's not enough,” she said. “There might be some humanitarian aid, you know, extra supplies, the kind of thing that's just going to make this place an even bigger target. But nothing to stop it.”

Nate shifted over on the bed, moving to sit behind her, then wrapped his arms around her waist. “I'm sorry,” he said.

Elena leaned back against his chest. “Thanks.” Then she let out a deep breath and titled her head back to look up at him. “I'm gonna wrap up tomorrow, so you should probably call Sully or Chloe, let them know they should drive out here.”

“Okay.” He reluctantly let her go and grabbed her satellite phone. Elena started sorting through the footage, making notes about possible edits or voiceovers, only half-listening to Nate's side of the call.

“Hey, Sully, it's Nate. Yeah, we're fine. You and Chloe should probably head out here tomorrow. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Are you--” Nate paused, then huffed out a laugh. “Oh, well, _sorry_. I'll let you get back to the bar. Uh-huh. See you tomorrow.”

“So, how's that reconnaissance going?” Elena asked dryly when Nate hung up.

He snorted. “I lost wingman points because I interrupted his flirting.”

“Yep, that's what I thought,” she said. Nate chuckled. “Any idea when they’ll get here?”

“Mid-afternoon, probably.”

Elena glanced at him and smirked. “How hungover do you think Sully's gonna be?”

“If I'm lucky? Very.”

*

Nate paused in pacing across the tiny room long enough to check his watch and scowl. Elena sighed. Mid-afternoon had come and gone with no sign of Sully and Chloe. Now it was nearly five, and Nate was not handling it well, to put it mildly. His paranoia over Elena’s safety had been in place since Shambhala, but he’d extended it out to Sully after Yemen. Which meant that he reacted very, very poorly if Sully was late or didn’t answer his phone.

Elena glanced at the satellite phone again. No missed calls, and she hadn’t been able to reach either of them, but that wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t like there was any reception out here. “D’you think we should drive out and look for them?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Nate ran a hand through his hair. “If we’re gonna go, we better do it soon, before it gets dark--”

Yesenia rapped on the door frame before poking her head in. “Your friends just passed the guards,” she said.

“Oh, thank God,” Nate breathed.

Elena just let out a relieved sigh. “C’mon,” she said, getting to her feet. “We’ll go meet them out at the tree.”

“And I can decide if I’m going to hug them or punch them,” Nate muttered.

They got out to the large tree at the edge of town a few moments before Chloe parked the mud-spattered truck. “Sorry we’re late,” she drawled.

Nate grinned and shook his head. “Had me worried,” he said, grabbing Sully for a quick hug as soon as the other man was on the ground. Sully looked a little surprised but went with it.

“You might want to check your sources, sweetheart,” Sully said to Elena once Nate had released him. “There were a lot more than ‘just a few’ patrols.”

Elena winced. “They’ve been picking up in the last few days,” she said. She gestured past Sully to Nate, who was laughing with Chloe about something. “We’ve seen a lot, driving around the area.”

“I had to get a little creative with the route,” Chloe said as she and Nate rejoined the conversation. “Haven’t been off-roading like that in a while.”

Sully snorted. “Goddamn thing has no shocks,” he grumbled, pulling a cigar out of his pocket.

Nate chuckled. “Well, we’re not going out there tonight,” he said. “Wandering around the jungle at night is just asking to get eaten by a jaguar or something.”

“Is it wrong that I kind of want to see Nate wrestle a jaguar now?” Chloe mused as she pulled her bag out of the truck. Elena snickered, which turned into full-blown giggles when Nate shot her a wounded look.

“Let’s just get back to the house,” Nate said, rolling his eyes. “Figure out the plan for tomorrow.”

*

They left a little later than planned the next morning—Yesenia insisted on feeding them a huge breakfast, Nate had to say good-bye to the local kids, and then there was the argument about who would ride where. There were two trucks now, and Chloe begged to ride with someone besides Sully. “It’s the cigars,” she said to Nate. “I don’t know how you put up with the smell.”

Nate blinked, his jaw twitching in a way that Elena knew meant he was trying to hold in laughter. “I’ve built up an immunity after years of exposure,” he replied.

Sully rolled his eyes and blew a stream of smoke away from the conversation. “It’s an open-air Jeep,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

They eventually decided that Nate and Chloe would ride together on the drive out to the ruins, and the subject would be revisited for the trip back to Bogotá. Elena double-checked her gear in the back of the Jeep, then climbed in and started the engine. Sully settled into the passenger seat beside her. “You’re gonna stick to the roads, right?” he asked. “I’m still sore from yesterday.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replied dryly. She waved to Yesenia as she backed up, then, with a final look at the town, she followed Chloe down the dirt road.

Nate had guessed, going by the location of the ruins and the state of the roads, that it would take an hour and a half, maybe two hours to drive out there. The first hour went well enough as they drove closer to the jungle. Elena and Sully chatted about her story and a few of the other jobs that Sully had on the line. They were in the middle of a discussion about whether or not Elena would be able to take a mini-vacation and join the guys on a job in Italy when everything went straight to hell.

She’d spent enough time in war zones to recognize the sound of an RPG being fired. Chloe and Nate’s truck, about fifty feet ahead of them on the road, suddenly shot forward, presumably as Chloe slammed the gas in an attempt to dodge the attack. It almost worked: the rocket clipped the back of the truck and exploded. Through the burst of fire and smoke, Elena saw the truck careen off the road and roll over.

Before the fear and panic had a chance to kick in, Elena heard a second rocket fire. She hit the gas, like Chloe had, and swerved off the road in an attempt to dodge. She managed to avoid the rocket, but not the tree root sticking up out of the ground. The Jeep went up on two wheels and seemed to hang there for a second before crashing over onto the passenger side. The impact slammed Elena against her seatbelt and left her dangling above Sully. She grabbed at the steering wheel and tried to get her feet braced against _something_. “Sully, you okay?” she asked.

Sully groaned and disentangled himself from the seatbelt. “Thought you said you were gonna stay on the roads,” he muttered, which Elena took as confirmation that he wasn't hurt too badly. He stood up in a crouch, keeping his head below the edge of the Jeep. “Okay,” he said and slid one arm around her back. “Can you get it?”

It took a couple tries, but she finally got the seatbelt to unlatch. Sully caught her, sort of, and Elena managed to get her feet under her. As soon as it was clear she could stand on her own, Sully crawled out the top of the Jeep. Elena followed suit, drawing her gun as she went, silently thankful that the car had flipped with the bottom of the chassis towards their attackers, instead of the open carriage. Sully moved to the rear end of the car, so Elena headed to the front, cautiously peering around the edge to look for their attackers. Two rockets in quick succession, but no more fired after that. Maybe they only had a couple?

Her quick glance revealed easily a dozen black-clad soldiers moving away from the jungle and towards their position. A few of them started firing at the Jeep, and Elena ducked back into cover. She wouldn't look at the truck. She couldn't. Even though the wind was carrying gouts of smoke into her line of sight, she couldn't look. Not if she wanted to hold it together long enough to live through this.

Sully leaned around his side of the Jeep and got off a few shots. Elena took a deep breath, waited for a break in the gunfire, then twisted around and fired at the advancing troops. But they were too far, too fast, too armored-- she couldn't tell if she'd landed any shots. They fired again, and Elena ducked back into cover.

Shots to her left drew her attention, and instinctively, she looked towards them. The truck was flipped on its side and on fire, but through the smoke she could see at least one person moving around. Elena let out a shaky breath. Sully fired three more shots, and Elena waited until he was back in cover to start firing again. There was more gunfire from the truck, too much to just be one person, and the soldiers seemed to be turning their attention that way. A few of them dropped, though Elena couldn't tell if it was due to her shots or Nate and Chloe's.

She only had one spare magazine on her. Elena dropped the empty one to the grass and slammed the fresh one in. Seventeen rounds left and, at last glance, at least half the soldiers were still up. Graciano's men, she was certain of it. No one else was operating out here. She peeked out of cover again and winced. They were closing in, and fast.

Another three soldiers had dropped and Elena was down to her last eight bullets when a jungle-camo Humvee came tearing up the road. “Oh, shit,” she muttered as it screeched to a stop near Nate and Chloe's truck. “Sully, get up here, they need help,” she said. She crawled back into the Jeep and hoisted herself up, her arms braced on the door and her feet planted on the seat and the dash. From there she had a slightly better view of the fight, although less cover. She fired at the few soldiers who were still visible, trying to be careful with each shot. There was movement and more gunfire by the truck, but from her angle, she couldn't see what was going on.

The Humvee suddenly shot forward, and Elena saw the back door slam as it sped off down the road. She had no idea what had happened over there, but that sure as hell wasn't a good sign. Her remaining bullets went into the second-to-last soldier. As soon as the field looked clear, she clambered out of the Jeep and raced after Sully towards the truck.

Chloe limped out to meet them, her pistol still clutched in one hand and her left arm covered in blood. “They took Nate,” she gasped. “I tried to stop them, but they-- they got him.”

Elena swallowed hard. “He's alive, though?”

Chloe nodded. “Hit him over the head and dragged him into the truck,” she said. “At least, the two guys who were still alive did.”

Elena let out a shuddery breath and closed her eyes. The situation hadn't improved any when she opened them: stuck in the middle of nowhere with two wrecked vehicles, no small number of injuries, and no idea where Nate was. “Okay,” she muttered to herself. Deal with what was in front of her. Chloe's bleeding arm, she could do something about that. “C'mon,” she said, gesturing for Chloe to follow her. “I had a first aid kit in my bag. It might have survived.”

Sully holstered his revolver. “I'll get some fresh guns,” he said with a nod at the bodies.

Elena led the way back to the Jeep. Her and Nate's bags were more or less intact, remarkably enough. Her equipment, though... “I'm sorry,” Chloe said as Elena stared down at the shattered camera. Her laptop bag was on the ground nearby, and whatever faint hope she’d had died when she opened it. The screen was completely detached, and the lower half was dented and scratched. So much for indestructible. Elena blinked hard against the sudden stinging in her eyes. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, which meant everything was hitting her at once. Nate was gone, they were injured and stranded, and it was all for _nothing_ because she'd just lost her whole damn story.

She set the laptop down, pushing that disappointment aside for later, then searched through her bag until she found the first aid kit. Elena cleaned up the cuts on Chloe's arm as best she could and taped bandages over the larger ones. Sully rejoined then with fresh pistol clips and AK-47s just as she finished. “So, how the hell do we find Nate?” he asked.

Chloe glanced at Elena. “Any idea where we are?”

“The maps were in the truck,” she said. “And even if we had them, that wouldn’t tell us where they took Nate.”

“If those were Graciano's men, they probably went back to the main camp,” Sully said.

Elena nodded. “We might be able to find it...” she began. “If they're driving, we could follow the roads they use through the jungle.”

“But we don't know _where_ the road starts,” Chloe said. “In a jungle like this, we might never find it.”

“So what do we do?” Elena asked, wrapping her arms around herself.

Chloe sighed. “You're not gonna like it,” she said. “They know that at least a couple of us survived the initial attack. So they'll probably send someone else to check it out. We round up the guns, fortify a position as best we can, and wait.”

Chloe was right. She didn't like it. “Wait how long?” Elena snapped. “God only knows what they're gonna do to him--” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she drew in a sharp breath.

Chloe cringed a bit. “Wandering around in the jungle isn't gonna be any faster,” she said.

“She's right, Elena,” Sully said regretfully. “We're better off staying put for now.”

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. “Fine,” Elena ground out. “Not forever, though. If no one's come by in an hour--”

“Two,” Chloe said.

Elena shot her an incredulous look. “Two hours? Chloe, this guy is a step or two under Lazarevic. Do you have any idea what he could do to Nate in that time?”

“They took him alive for a reason,” Chloe said, maddeningly calm and reasonable. “He was unconscious when they threw him in the truck. It'll take a while for him to wake up again. If they want to question him, they have to wait until he's conscious. We've got a little time.”

But no idea how much. “Two hours,” Elena said. “Then I don't care if I have to walk halfway to Bogotá, we're going after him.”

“Deal,” Sully said quickly before Chloe could argue again. Elena looked down, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides. There was nothing she could do and she _hated_ it. Sully cleared his throat. “Chloe, let's round up the rest of the guns,” he said. “Elena, want to see what you can salvage here?”

Elena looked up at him, and she could tell from the tension around his eyes, the hard set of his jaw, that he was fighting to hold it together too. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I'll see what I can find.”

The other two headed off. Once they were gone, Elena sagged back against the wrecked Jeep, one hand pressed to her eyes as she took several deep, gasping breaths in lieu of actually sobbing. Once she felt like she had herself under control again, she went back to her bag and started looking for anything useful.

Her satellite phone had been crushed in the wreck, but the earpieces they'd brought for adventuring purposes were still working. Elena tossed them into the laptop case, along with the lower half of the laptop. Maybe the tech guys at the studio could salvage something off the hard drive. Besides that and the first aid kit, there wasn't much. Some dirty clothes and Nate's books. Nothing irreplaceable, fortunately, he knew better than to bring the first editions on trips like this. Elena jotted down the titles, telling herself that when they got Nate home safe, he’d want to buy replacements.

She stuffed one of his shirts into the bag, too, and didn't let herself think about why.

Rounding up the guns and sorting through the equipment only took about fifteen minutes. They ended up with a neat collection of AK-47s and handguns, with silencers on a couple of the latter. Sully found a few grenades on the bodies, too. Elena and Chloe exchanged a glance and both insisted that Sully hang onto them. Sully didn't argue. There was a small clump of trees just off the road, probably where their attackers had launched the ambush from. It was a good a place as any to wait and watch the road.

So they waited. And watched. Sully occupied himself with checking and rechecking their collection weapons. Chloe leaned against a tree, looking almost calm, save for the way she kept spinning something silver and shiny in her hands. It took a few minutes for Elena to work out that it was a lighter. Elena wanted to ask why she had it-- Chloe didn't smoke, she knew that-- and why she was playing with it like a worry stone. Instead she just stared at the road and twisted her wedding ring around her finger.

It had been close to forty minutes since the attack when Chloe suddenly straightened up. “Incoming,” she murmured, slipping the lighter back in her pocket. Elena drew her pistol, while Sully picked up one of the grenades.

A dark green, mud-spattered Jeep came into view a few seconds later. Sully made to pull the pin, and Chloe held out her hand. “Wait a second,” she said. “We need the car in one piece.” The Jeep came to a stop in front of the still-smoking truck, and four soldiers piled out. Weapons drawn, they split into pairs to circle around the vehicle. Chloe dropped her hand. “Now.”

Sully pulled the pin and hurled the grenade across the road. It bounced off the truck and landed behind it; Elena heard shouting and instinctively braced herself for the explosion. Over two years since Shambhala, and the sound of a grenade detonating could still send her right back to it, the flash and the pain and the blood.

The grenade blew, Elena shuddered, and then she was following Chloe out towards the road. The two remaining soldiers came around the truck, but Chloe and Sully started shooting before they could even get their rifles up. One of the soldiers collapsed, clutching at his throat and gurgling, and Elena trained her gun on the last soldier. Sully barked something in Spanish, and after a second of hesitation, the soldier let his rifle fall to the ground.

“You speak Spanish?” Chloe asked, without taking her eyes or her gun off the soldier.

Sully shrugged and holstered his revolver. “Barely,” he said as he stepped over to search their prisoner for weapons. “I do know how to tell someone to drop their gun in eight languages, though.”

Elena huffed out a laugh, and Chloe shook her head. “Of course.”

“I also know how to ask for a room number in twelve,” Sully continued, pulling a pistol off the soldier’s belt and tossing it into the grass.

Elena saw their captive’s eyes flick to the side, and the way he suddenly tensed was familiar. She’d seen Nate escape similar situations often enough to know what was about to happen. “Sully--” she started.

The soldier turned, trying for a grab, but Sully stepped to the side and kicked the back of his knee, then slammed his elbow into the soldier’s neck as he fell. “Poor choice,” Sully said as the man collapsed, groaning.

Chloe took a couple steps forward, her gun aimed at the man’s head. “Let’s see if he can give us driving directions to the camp,” she said. “Elena, you speak Spanish, right?”

“Um.” Elena winced and shrugged. “I’m pretty rusty. Do you?”

“No,” Chloe said. “I speak some Italian, though. That’s pretty close. I think.”

Well. This was about to be one of the worst interrogations ever conducted. Sully roughly pulled the man into a sitting position and stood behind him. “ _Where is Graciano’s camp_?” Elena asked in slow, careful Spanish.

The soldier glanced up at them, then over his shoulder at Sully, before asking a question in reply, too fast for Elena to understand. “He wants to know if we’ll let him live,” Chloe translated.

Elena nodded. “ _Yes, we will._ ”

He seemed to consider it for a moment, then shrugged and began speaking quickly, gesturing down the road. “ _Slower, slower,_ ” Elena said, holding up her hands. He gave her a confused look and muttered something.

“He, uh, thought you’d know the language,” Chloe said. “I think.”

Okay, that was unnerving. Why would one of Graciano’s soldiers have any preconceptions about her? Elena shook her head. She’d worry about it later. Directions first. It took some time and a few sketches in the dirt, but they managed to get directions to the main camp, hidden several kilometers back in the jungle, as well as a basic layout of the camp itself. Elena scribbled the maps down in her notebook.

“Can you ask if he knows anything about Nate?” Elena asked, glancing at Chloe.

She nodded and relayed the question in a mix of Spanish and Italian. The soldier was looking less and less impressed by them as the conversation went on, and Elena was pretty sure that if he didn’t have two guns trained on him, he wouldn’t be cooperating at all. He shook his head and answered Chloe’s question. Elena caught the word for American in there, but before she could parse out anything else Chloe let out a surprised breath. “A spy?” she said.

“What?” Sully asked.

Chloe shook her head. “Graciano thinks we’re American spies,” she said. “That’s probably why they took Nate alive.”

Elena covered her face with her hand. “Oh, god.” It would have been easier if they were after the treasure; Nate would have given up that information immediately. But if he insisted, truthfully, that he wasn’t a spy and didn’t know anything, they wouldn’t believe him. Which meant they’d just hurt him until he told them what they wanted to hear.

“Anything else we need to know?” Chloe asked.

“No,” Elena said, standing up from her crouch and wincing a bit as her muscles throbbed.

Chloe nodded. “Good,” she said, then stepped forward and pistol-whipped the soldier. He toppled over to the side, blood trickling from the gash on his temple. “Let’s go,” she said and strode towards the Jeep.

Elena tossed her bag in the backseat, then climbed in after it. Sully grabbed a few extra guns, and once he was in the passenger seat, Chloe floored it and tore off down the dirt road.

*

With Chloe’s driving, it didn’t take long to reach the narrow, well-hidden road leading into the jungle. From there, though, the jungle itself slowed them considerably. It was hard to tell how close they were to the camp, and the last thing they needed was to accidentally drive right up to the front gates. About a kilometer out, or so they guessed, Chloe eased the Jeep off the road and into the underbrush. She put it in park and twisted around in her seat. “All right, we need a plan,” she said.

Elena nodded. She’d been studying the maps on the drive, and she had a few ideas. “Yeah,” she said, turning her notebook towards the others. “We’re up here,” she said, gesturing to the northern side of the camp. “Prisoners are held here.” She tapped a rectangle near the southern wall. “Somehow we have to get back here and get to Nate.”

“Well, we can’t just storm the front gate,” Sully said.

“No, we can’t,” Elena agreed. “Here’s what I’m thinking. Sully, you and I head towards the camp. There’s a munitions dump here—see if you can get to it and create a distraction. Blow something up.” Sully chuckled to himself and nodded. “I’ll circle around the camp, sneak in, and grab Nate.” She paused for a moment, blinking at the sudden feeling of déjà vu. “Chloe, once we’re clear, you come in with the getaway car. And we’ll all rendezvous…” She peered at the map, then tapped a spot a little bit to the east. “Here. Pick us all up and we’ll get out of here.”

Chloe sighed. “Not sure I like you going in there alone, Sunshine.”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Elena said. That wasn’t entirely true; there was no reason that Sully or Chloe couldn’t sneak in and rescue Nate. But he was _hers_ , dammit, which was possessive and not at all fair to the others. Elena didn’t have it in her to care.

“It’s not a bad plan,” Sully said. “It’s not great, but I think a great plan would probably involve a black-ops team and a helicopter.” Elena managed a laugh, then twisted around to grab her bag. She handed out the earpieces and steadfastly ignored the way her stomach twisted at the sight of the one left over. “Elena, here,” Sully said, passing her a silenced pistol. “You’re gonna need it.”

With a sigh, she nodded and switched guns. “Only use the radio if you need it,” Chloe advised as they climbed out of the Jeep. “If you can’t talk, just click the button once. We’ll hear the static.”

Elena nodded. “Be careful,” she said.

Chloe gave her a grim smile in return. “You, too.”

The jungle quickly swallowed the Jeep as she and Sully headed down the road. “How long d’you think we have before they realize the second patrol’s missing?” Sully asked.

Elena shrugged. “Not long,” she said. “If we’re lucky, they’ll send more people out to look. Less soldiers for us to get through.”

“Heh, yeah.” Sully shook his head. “Haven’t exactly had much luck today, though.”

“Well, we’re due for some, then, right?”

Sully just chuckled. “When do you want that distraction, by the way?” he asked after a few minutes. “As soon as I get there?”

Elena frowned, thinking. “I’ll signal you. Two clicks on the radio if I can’t talk.”

“Got it.” Sully passed the information on to Chloe, and they continued picking their way along the edge of the road. Staying close to the trees meant they could easily dive for cover if a patrol came past.

It wasn’t long before they reached a fork in the road. “Okay,” Elena said, checking her map. “The munitions dump is this way,” she held out the map to show Sully, “and I’ll circle around here.”

He nodded. “Let me know when you want the fireworks,” he said.

“Yeah.” Elena took a deep breath and glanced in the direction of the camp.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Sully said.

Elena looked back at him and managed a smile. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Be careful.”

“You, too. Good luck.”

*

Elena wiped water off her face with the back of her hand and checked the guards again. Still five of them. She leaned against the fallen tree and weighed her options. Just opening fire was definitely out; she was outnumbered, and the guards would immediately call for backup. She could have Sully set off the explosion, but that would put the whole camp on high alert, which was the opposite of what she needed to get to Nate. And besides, she needed the explosions to cover their escape. Based on her map, the tent where they were holding Nate was just on the other side of this wall, but there was no way she could get in from here.

Slowly, with half her attention on the guards a mere thirty feet away, Elena started picking her way through the dense underbrush again. Climbing up the bluffs on the western side of the camp was her best bet. She sighed and shook her head. Things were pretty damn bad when 'best bet' meant climbing down slick, mossy stones without being seen or falling and breaking her neck.

The rocky outcropping sloped down into a steep hill on her side, which made getting up it comparatively easy. Elena crouched under an enormous leaf and wiped her muddy hands on her jeans, grateful for the momentary break from the rain. There were only two guards that she could see up here. Much better odds. She crept up to the edge of the cliff and peered down into the camp. It looked like a fifteen, maybe twenty-foot drop. No problem... under normal conditions.

She glanced over at the two guards sharing the cliff with her to confirm they hadn't moved, then started planning her route through the camp. The large, black tent where prisoners were interrogated was flush against the south wall. Once she was on the ground, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get there-- plenty of other tents and vehicles to hide behind. She'd have to figure out how to get into the tent once she got there. And then, of course, how to get Nate back out.

Elena looked down at the cliff beneath her again. She needed some kind of distraction, something that would get everybody looking the other way for the few seconds it would take her to scramble down the cliff. She checked the guards again, then reached up and clicked on her earpiece. “Sully,” she whispered, trusting the rain to hide her voice from the soldiers.

“Yeah?” he replied, just as quiet.

“Think you could get me a minor distraction?”

He huffed out a breath. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't want you to blow the munitions yet, just... I need everyone to look away for a minute.”

“Can you get your hands on some explosives, Victor?” Chloe asked, her voice comparatively loud, and Elena fought back the instinctive urge to shush her.

Sully snorted. “You think I haven't already put together a nice collection?”

“If you've got C4 or something, you could stick it on a tree,” Chloe suggested. “Storm like this, a falling tree wouldn't be suspicious, but it'd be loud as hell.”

Sully was quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I think I can arrange that. Elena, where do you need them looking-- or, well, not looking?”

“I'm at the southwest corner,” she said. “Get them looking somewhere else and I'll be able to get in.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sit tight. This might be a few minutes.”

Elena clicked off the earpiece and let out a slow breath. From her perch, she had a clear view of the interrogation tent. There was a single guard standing out front, but no telling how many people were inside. Hopefully not many. Hopefully she could shoot whoever was in there before they killed her and Nate. Hopefully they wouldn't carry his body out while she was sitting here--

“Ready,” Sully said abruptly.

Elena started, then shook her head. “Just tell me when.”

There was a pause, then Sully muttered “Now.” There was a loud crash to the north, and Elena swung herself over the side of the cliff, sacrificing stealth for speed and hoping like hell that she'd hit the ground before the tree did.

She jumped the last ten feet and landed hard, her breath hissing through her teeth as the impact jarred her legs. Elena forced herself to limp behind a truck before stopping to let the pain fade. No one was shooting at her, so she guessed she'd made it in undetected. She pushed her hair out of her face again, drew her gun, and started to make her slow, careful way across the compound.

While the plants on the jungle floor had done a decent job of holding most of the soil in place, the compound was a morass of mud. Elena's jeans were caked in it up to the knees. She crouched behind a stack of crates and glanced skyward. The rain seemed to be letting up, finally, though she honestly wasn't sure if that would help or hinder her. She shook her head and looked to her next target. One more tent between her and Nate, and ten feet of open space between her and the next tent. Cautiously, she poked her head over the top of the crate and glanced around. Clear. Elena pushed herself upright and dashed across the space, flinging herself into cover, holding her breath as she waited for shouting and gunfire.

Nothing. Elena sighed and moved through the narrow gap between the back wall of the tent and the wall of the compound. There was a truck parked by the interrogation tent; it would be perfect cover while she figured out how to get in. Finally, a lucky break. She was four or five feet from the edge of the tent when a soldier rounded the corner, looked up, and saw her.

Elena got over her shock a split-second before he did, but that was all she needed. She lunged forward and drove her knee into his groin. He gasped and doubled forward; Elena grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face against her already-raised knee. The impact of bone on bone hurt like hell, but Elena gritted her teeth and pushed past it. As the soldier staggered, she slammed her pistol into his temple. He collapsed into the mud, probably unconscious. Elena grabbed his pistol and tucked it into the back of her jeans, then stepped past him and peered around the edge of the tent. Clear, again. Probably didn't really have anyone actively patrolling this area, since there was a permanent sentry on duty. Elena flexed her knee experimentally. It hurt, but she'd be able to run on it. With one last glance out at the camp, she bolted for the truck.

Faint light shone through the gaps in the tent wall, and Elena cautiously peered through one. Another lucky break-- there were crates and boxes piled up along the back of the tent, perfect cover for her once she got inside. She couldn't see much into the tent beyond that, but this close, she could definitely hear. “All we want from you is the truth,” a man drawled in heavily accented English.

“I told you,” Nate started, and Elena couldn't help the gasp of relief that escaped her at the sound of his voice. Yes, he sounded like hell, but he was alive. She glanced over her shoulder, then crouched down and started untying the knotted rope that held the corner of the tent together. “I'm a treasure hunter. There's some ruins a few miles from here. I can draw you a map if you want.”

The man chuckled darkly, and Elena flinched at the unfortunately familiar sounds of a hard slap and Nate's grunt of pain. “Who are you with?” the man asked. “The Army? CIA?”

“I don't even know what CIA _stands_ for,” Nate said desperately.

Elena tugged the first rope free, then reached up for the second. This one was tighter, and the water hadn't helped matters any. She bit her tongue to keep from cursing and kept working, even as Nate let out a choked yelp of pain. “If you cooperate, we might fix your leg,” the interrogator said. Elena swallowed hard. If Nate couldn't walk, this escape was gonna be a lot more complicated. “You could walk out of here.”

Nate laughed mirthlessly. “You're gonna shoot me in the head and dump my body in the jungle,” he said. “I've been in this position often enough to know your plan.”

“Heh.” The interrogator sounded amused. “You think you will escape, then. Tell your government how we killed your friends.” Another thud, another pained groan from Nate. “No. You are right. Once we are done with you, you will die, just like them.”

There was a wet, coughing sound. “Y'know, that's not much incentive to say anything,” Nate slurred.

Elena yanked the rope free and eased the tent flaps aside as the interrogator laughed. “Oh, by the time we are finished with you, it will be,” he said. Elena ducked down and crawled inside, keeping her head below the level of the crates. She inched forward and risked a look.

Nate had his back to her, slumped in a metal chair with his wrists cuffed to the arms. Two more guards stood near the tent flap, while the interrogator walked towards a long table against one wall. None of the men were wearing armor. Of course not, they wouldn't need it, not in here.

The interrogator paced up and down the table, tapping a finger against his lips thoughtfully. From her position, Elena couldn't see everything on the table, but the presence of an electric drill and a rack of long, thin needles told a clear enough story. The man paused, then half-turned to one of the guards. “Left hand,” he said and picked something up off the table. Bolt cutters, Elena realized, when he held them up for Nate to see. “Perhaps he'll talk before we take off the finger with the wedding ring, hm?”

“No--” Nate jerked in the chair, fighting instinctively, as one of the guards walked towards him. Dammit. Elena drew her pistol and tapped her earpiece twice. Sully wouldn't be able to set off the distraction in time, and she knew it. Elena braced her arms on top of the crate and took careful aim. Deep breath, don't worry about time, all the time in the world, just line up the shot, exhale and squeeze--

The interrogator jerked to the side, blood and brain matter spattering out from the side of his head. He fell sideways, but Elena didn't bother to watch. She fired two shots into the chest of the guard closest to Nate, then another three into the one by the door. Wait for the sentry, he'd have to know something was wrong, everything went quiet and a silenced pistol wasn't exactly silent... Sure enough, within a few seconds, the sentry shoved the tent flap aside and stepped into the room. He opened his mouth to speak, and Elena fired again, two clean chest shots. He dropped to his knees, then pitched forward into the dirt.

“That's all of them,” Nate said helpfully, turning his head from side to side in an attempt to see. “Unless you're not here to rescue me, in which case, there's a whole army outside, you should probably go.”

Elena let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob and scrambled over the crate. “Of course I'm here to rescue you, you idiot,” she said.

Nate huffed out a weak laugh. “Hey, 'lena,” he said and let his head fall back against the chair. “Knew you guys were okay. Knew he was bluffing.”

She circled around to the front of the chair and sucked in an involuntary, horrified gasp. “Oh, god, Nate...” He was a mess, simply put, his face and arms covered in gashes and bruises. One eye was blackened and swollen shut, and his lips and teeth were stained with blood. His right leg was bent at an odd angle, and going by the way his breath kept hitching on every inhale, Elena was pretty sure he had some broken ribs.

Nate managed a smile, but the effect was more gruesome than comforting. “Looks worse than it is,” he said.

“It looks pretty bad.” Nate's arms were cuffed to the chair, and Elena holstered her pistol, then picked up the dropped bolt cutter. She reached up and clicked on her earpiece. “I've got him,” she said. “Sully, the sooner you get that distraction, the better. Chloe, start heading in.”

“Is he okay?” Chloe asked.

Elena cut through the first cuff. “He's in one piece,” she said.

Chloe huffed out a breath. “Well, that's something.” Elena heard the engine start up in the background. “On my way in.”

There was a single burst of static, which Elena assumed was from Sully. She cut the second cuff and threw the bolt cutters aside with a little more violence than necessary. Nate rubbed his wrists, wincing a bit, then reached down to gingerly prod at his knee. He hissed in pain and shook his head. “Dislocated,” he muttered. “Damn.”

Elena frowned. “Do you think you'll be able to walk--”

Nate jerked his hands on his knee and made a choked, agonized sound. He took a few deep, gasping breaths, then very carefully flexed his leg. “Oh, ow,” he muttered. “Yeah. Should be able to walk.”

“Okay,” she said, taking his arm to help him stand. “C'mon, we need to--”

The ground shook with the force of a distant explosion. Outside, the camp exploded, too, the soldiers shouting in confusion and alarm. Nate turned to look up at Elena, his good eye wide with shock. “What did Sully do?”

“Munitions dump.”

He smirked and shook his head. “And I missed it.” Elena helped him to his feet; he gingerly put weight on his right leg and almost collapsed. “Shit,” he muttered. “Dammit, that's not good...”

Elena slid her arm around his waist and pulled his arm across her shoulders. “C'mon,” she said. “Let's get you the hell out of here.”

“Yeah-- wait, wait,” Nate stopped her after one hobbling step towards the tent flap. “Gun.”

“Nate--”

“Nothin' wrong with my arm,” he said. “Just grab me one of theirs--”

Elena exhaled sharply and pulled the spare out of her belt. “Here,” she said, passing it to him. Nate adjusted the gun in his left hand, then nodded. Elena tapped her earpiece again as they made their way to the front of the tent. “Chloe, grab Sully, then get as close to the southeast corner of the camp as you can,” she said. “We're not gonna be able to make it to the rendezvous point.”

One burst of static. At least one of them had heard her. Elena pushed the tent flat aside, and they stepped out into chaos.

A massive column of smoke and flame was visible to the west of the camp, and nearly everyone seemed to be running in that direction. There weren't many soldiers at the back of the compound; the distraction had done the trick and then some. Elena headed toward the east wall, half-supporting Nate as he limped along beside her. She honestly wasn't sure how much use he'd be if anyone started shooting at them; his breathing was labored, and he stumbled every few steps, wincing in pain as he put too much weight on his injured leg.

Someone nearby shouted, and a few bullets whizzed past. “Shit,” Elena swore, aiming past Nate to return fire.

She got off a couple shots, while Nate just raised his arm and almost blindly squeezed the trigger. It wasn't precise, but it was enough to drive their attackers into cover. “Keep going,” Nate muttered. Elena spared a glance up at him and winced. He was pale under the blood and bruises, his features tense with pain.

Elena's earpiece suddenly crackled. “You two gettin' close?” Chloe asked, voice raised over the sound of gunfire. “We made some friends on the way in.”

The wall was about thirty feet away. “Get as close as you can to the wall,” Elena said. “We'll be there in a minute.”

“You got it, Sunshine.” Chloe sounded oddly cheerful. Then again, combat driving was sort of her thing. She was probably enjoying this a little bit.

Nate kept up the covering fire as they hurried toward the east wall. His gun clicked empty, and he let it drop in favor of pressing a hand to his ribs. Ten feet to go, and a soldier stepped into their path, rifle aimed. Elena didn't stop, just raised her gun and started shooting, emptying round after round into the man's chest. He fell, and Elena swerved to the side to avoid the corpse. “Nice shooting,” Nate commented.

Elena brought them to a gap in the wall, wide enough for them to squeeze through sideways. “Can you make it?” Elena said.

“Not much choice,” Nate said and stepped away from her. Elena scanned the camp behind them as he hobbled through, cursing under his breath as he went. “Elena, come on.”

One last look and she followed him, stepping up to his side to support him as soon as she cleared the wall. They made it another ten feet or so, Nate stumbling and staggering and coming dangerously close to dragging them both down, when Chloe came tearing up in the Jeep. “Come on!” she shouted.

Elena hauled Nate the last few steps to the Jeep. Sully leaned over to help Nate half-climb, half-collapse into the back. Elena grabbed the sides and threw herself in after him. “Go, go!” she shouted, then almost fell over onto the backseat when Chloe floored it. She managed to get herself righted as Chloe swung the Jeep in a tight circle and started barreling back north.

Nate groaned and hauled himself into a sitting position, his legs stretched out on the backseat. “You okay, kid?” Sully asked.

“'m great,” Nate replied. “Sorry I missed the explosions.”

“Figured you would be,” Sully said. “So I brought back some souvenirs.” He pointed to the back of the Jeep. Elena peered over the seat, then blinked, her eyes wide. There was a pile of guns, mostly AK-47s, though she picked out a couple shotguns and what looked like a grenade launcher in there, too.

Nate laughed. “You always get me the nicest things.”

“Well, get ready to put them to good use,” Chloe said. “I think our friends are back.” To their right, something was ripping through the underbrush, too distant to see clearly but closing in fast.

Sully made a face and picked up an AK-47 of his own off the floor at his feet. “Thought I sent them a pretty clear message already,” he said.

Elena leaned over and grabbed a gun for herself. Nate held out his hand, and she frowned. “You sure?”

He shrugged and gave her a weary half-smile. “If there's one thing I can do right now, it's fire a gun.”

“Fair enough.” She handed him the rifle, then grabbed another one to keep. Nate turned as much as he could and rested the gun on the top of the seat. Elena ended up mostly standing, her knee braced against the seat and her back to the passenger seat.

The other Jeep swung out onto the road just behind them. Elena fired in short bursts, aiming at the guy in the passenger seat with the handgun. Beside her, Nate had switched to full auto and poured bullets into the windshield. Even as the glass spiderwebbed and cracked, a second truck came into view. The first Jeep pulled off the road. “Uh, Chloe,” Elena said as the truck sped up, clearly intent on ramming them. “We have a problem.”

“We're fine,” Chloe replied calmly. “Hold on tight.” Elena grabbed the roll bar overhead and braced herself as best she could. Chloe turned abruptly, hard and fast enough that the Jeep rode up on two wheels for a second. Unlike when Elena had pulled the same trick, though, the car didn't flip. Nate swore loudly when the wheels thudded back down, and Chloe sped down the road. Going by the number of branches cracking against the sides, Elena was pretty sure this path was meant for foot traffic, not vehicles.

They only had about a thirty second breather before the truck caught up with them again. “Don't they have bigger problems to worry about?” Nate grumbled. Elena just shook her head and took aim at the windshield again. The soldier in the passenger seat leaned out his window with an assault rifle of his own and opened fire. Elena ducked, then fired back, knowing that the odds of hitting him were slim to none. Just get enough bullets in the air for him to back off, that's all she needed--

Pain lanced across her left arm, and Elena dropped down, kneeling in the small space between the seats. “Dammit,” she swore, craning her neck to peer at the wound. The bullet had grazed her, although it was pretty damn deep for a graze.

“You okay?” Nate asked anxiously.

Elena took a deep breath and nodded. “I'll be fine,” she said and pushed herself upright again. Ignoring the pain in her arm, she raised the gun again and kept shooting.

Nate emptied his rifle and tossed it out the side, then leaned over the seat to grab a fresh one. “Go for the engine,” he said, and Elena shifted her aim accordingly. The truck was armored, but all armor had gaps, and with the number of bullets hitting it, it was only a matter of time before a few found their way in. Black smoke started pouring out of the engine, and the truck rolled to a stop behind them.

“Nice shootin', kids,” Sully said.

Elena glanced at her arm again. Her sleeve was soaked with blood, and the wound stung horribly. “Chloe, where'd my bag end up?” she asked. Getting a bandage on it would help, at least a little.

Chloe waved a hand over her shoulder. “Should be under the seat,” she said. “I moved it when the storm started.”

“Thanks.” Elena set her gun down and was halfway crouched to look for her bag when a grenade went off just behind them. The Jeep lurched forward with the shockwave, and Chloe cursed as she fought to regain control. Elena threw her arms out to steady herself, then straightened up again to see what the hell was trying to kill them now.

“Oh, crap,” Nate muttered as the Humvee rolled into view. For the moment, their Jeep had the speed advantage, but the Humvee had the benefit of a mounted turret.

Sully twisted around in his seat to look. “Goddamn, kid. They must've really liked you.”

Elena glanced around, then upward, trying to see the sun. Seemed like they were going south, which was the exact opposite direction of the road back to Bogotá. “Chloe, isn't north the other--”

“Less backseat driving, more shooting,” Chloe cut in. Elena glanced sideways at Nate, who pulled himself upright and readied his gun. She glanced back at the truck. The odds of stopping that thing with two or three AKs weren't great. Still. They had to try. She clicked the gun to automatic fire and pulled the trigger, wincing a bit at the recoil. Her shoulder was going to be one giant bruise tomorrow, she just knew it. Behind her, Sully leaned over the passenger door and started shooting too.

Another grenade detonated about twenty feet behind them. Elena shuddered but kept shooting. “Might be more effective to _throw_ the damn guns at it,” Nate called. “Chloe, we gotta lose 'em.”

“I'm working on it, Nathan,” she snapped.

“Didn't I grab a goddamn grenade launcher?” Sully demanded.

Elena winced. Oh. Right. She glanced at the Humvee-- getting closer, dammit-- and leaned over the backseat. She managed to dig the grenade launcher out of the pile of guns and straightened up again, bracing herself as best she could. “Uh,” Nate began as Elena hoisted the grenade launcher to her shoulder. “Have you ever used one of those things before?”

She sighted down the scope and adjusted her aim. “It’s like camera, right?” she said with a grin. “You just point and shoot.” Clear shot at the windshield. She pulled the trigger, and the grenade fired with a surprisingly soft _thoomp_ -ing sound. The grenade hit the Humvee dead-on and exploded; the other truck swerved wildly and plowed into a tree.

Nate let out a triumphant whoop. “That's my girl!” he said and held up his hand. Elena laughed, more in relief than anything else, and gave him a high-five.

Sully chuckled and shook his head. “Better hang onto that for now,” he said. “Just in case.”

“Yeah,” Elena said, sliding down to sit on the floor. Someone would tell her if she needed to blow up any more trucks.

That seemed to be the last of their pursuers. Chloe found her way back out of the jungle and onto the main road relatively quickly. Elena returned the grenade launcher to the back and pulled the first aid kit out of her bag, then let Nate bandage up her arm. There wasn't much she could do for his injuries, and with the repeated blows to the head he'd taken, she didn't quite feel comfortable giving him any painkillers. He waved off her apologies. “I'll be fine,” he said. “Really.”

It took a bit of climbing and finagling in the backseat, but Elena managed to arrange herself and Nate so they could both sit. She stretched her right leg out along the back of the seat, with her left foot on the floor. Nate stretched his legs out and leaned against her, his back to her chest and his head on her shoulder. It would have been really nice, actually, if they weren't both sporting a large collection of injuries.

Elena let out a quiet breath and turned her head to press a kiss to Nate's temple. “By the way,” she said, “it stands for Central Intelligence Agency.”

He tilted his head back to peer up at her in abject confusion. Then it clicked, and he let out an exhausted laugh. “Oh,” he said. “Well. That makes sense.”

“How far out are we, Chloe?” Sully asked.

She shook her head. “Four, maybe five hours,” she said. “We'll need to stop for gas somewhere along the way, too, we're not gonna make it on what's in here.”

Sully twisted around to look in the backseat. Elena just sighed as his gaze flicked over their bloody, bruised forms. “Won't that be fun,” he said.

“Yep,” Chloe replied.

Elena glanced down at Nate as his fingertips brushed against her jaw. He gave her a weak, sort of dazed smile, then his hand fell back to his side as his eyes fluttered shut. “Hey, don't fall asleep on me,” she said gently. His eyes stayed closed. “Nate?” No response. “Nate.”

“Is he okay?” Sully asked, voice suddenly taut with worry.

“I think he just passed out,” Elena said. She could feel him breathing, and while being unconscious probably wasn't the greatest thing, it wasn't all that surprising, either. She rubbed her hand down his arm and leaned her head back. They'd be fine. And if anyone else needed to be shot, Sully could handle it.

*

Elena limped down the hall behind Sully, who was at the head of their little parade of injured people. Sully apparently made it a point to know at least one semi-shady doctor who accepted cash payment and didn't ask questions in every city. The doctor that had seen their sorry band once they'd made it back to Bogotá had visibly struggled with the latter half of that requirement, but he'd gotten everyone patched up regardless. The sizable stack of hundreds Sully had pressed into his hand probably helped quite a bit in that direction. Sully had come out of the whole misadventure relatively unscathed, with only a few scrapes and bruises and a minor concussion. Chloe's arm had needed stitches, as had Elena's. Yet another scar to add to her growing collection. Elena was also sporting quite a few purple-black bruises, and she had an ace bandage and an ice pack for her knee, too.

Sully unlocked the door of their hotel suite and held it open for them. Elena immediately headed for the couch and sank down on it with a weary groan. Nate brought up the rear, limping in on crutches with his knee in a brace. In addition to the dislocated kneecap, he had a hairline fracture in his thigh bone. The doctor had given him very strict orders to stay off his feet as much as possible for the next four to six weeks; then, when it hadn't looked like Nate was going to take those orders seriously, repeated them to Elena and Sully. That was in addition to the concussion, the black eye, the broken ribs, the gashes and bruises and mild burns. 

Nate eased himself down onto the couch beside Elena and propped his crutches up against the arm. “Please nobody tell Cutter what happened,” he said as he stretched his legs out in front of him.

“Too late,” Chloe said. “I texted him on the way back from the clinic.” Nate groaned and let his head fall to the back of the couch. As if on cue, Chloe's phone chimed, and she pulled it out of her pocket. “His reply is just 'ha ha ha ha' until he ran out of characters.” She paused for a second. “Oh, no, wait, there's a second text. Although that one is mostly just exclamation points.” Elena chuckled and shook her head, while Nate just scowled at the ceiling.

“So, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving,” Sully said. There were general noises of agreement from everyone else, and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the door. “Want me to go grab dinner?”

“You would almost be my hero,” Nate said. Sully shot him a look, and Nate waved a hand in Elena's direction. “She rescued me from the middle of an armed compound. Totally my hero.” Elena managed a faint smile and looked away. “Getting dinner does not top that.”

“But it comes close,” Sully said.

“Well. I'm really hungry.”

Sully rolled his eyes and headed for the door. “Be good, kids,” he called.

Chloe pointed at her bedroom. “I'm gonna go shower,” she said. “If I'm not out in thirty minutes, can one of you come make sure I didn't fall asleep?”

Elena wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was joking. “You bet,” she said. Chloe trudged off to her room and shut the door, leaving Nate and Elena alone. Elena glanced over at him; he'd closed his eyes, and Elena poked him in the shoulder.

“I'm awake,” he said without moving or opening his eyes.

She huffed out a laugh, then pushed herself upright and slowly made her way over to the coffee maker. Dealing with the mundane task of brewing coffee was a much-needed distraction, although far too brief of one. She fixed her coffee, collected both mugs and the box of sugar packets, then went back to the couch. Nate hadn't moved. She sat down beside him and lightly elbowed him. “Wake up, you.”

“Hmrph?” Nate blinked and sat up. “Oh. Hey, coffee. Thanks.” Elena pressed the mug into his hands and set the sugar on the table in front of him. He laughed and scooted forward to start adding it to his coffee.

Elena half-raised her mug to her lips, then lowered it with a sigh. “I'm sorry,” she said.

Nate paused in pouring sugar into his coffee and glanced at her. “For... coffee?”

“For this,” she said, gesturing at the bandages and leg brace. “This is my fault. If I hadn't taken this job or asked you to come, you wouldn't have--”

“Whoa, whoa, no, Elena, this is not your fault,” Nate said. He set his mug down and turned to face her, wincing a bit as he did so. “Sully and I probably would have taken that job anyway.”

She leaned forward to put her mug on the table, too, and shook her head. “They only attacked us because of my work,” she said. “They probably wouldn't have come after you guys if you were just going for the treasure.” Which was still out there, presumably. So in addition to getting everyone injured and possibly losing her story, she'd blown their job, too. Elena closed her eyes and sighed. Dammit.

“Elena...” She felt Nate's hand wrap around hers, and she opened her eyes to look over at him. He squeezed her fingers. “Nobody's blaming you for this,” he said. Elena looked away. Nobody but her, anyway. “Hey,” Nate said and gently turned her face back towards him. “If I'm not allowed to beat myself up about what happened with Flynn and Shambhala, then you don't get to beat yourself up over this.”

She huffed out a breath. “That was different.”

Nate raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh,” he said dryly. “It wasn't your fault. Okay?”

Elena shrugged. While she appreciated the attempt, Nate's assurances weren't enough to stop the guilt. Mostly because he was wrong. It was her fault. She was just lucky that everyone had made it out more or less intact. At least he didn't blame her.

Nate slid his arm around her shoulders, and Elena scooted over to lean against his side. “My camera got wrecked in the crash,” she told him.

“Didn't you back up everything--?”

“Laptop broke, too.” She swallowed hard and turned her face towards his shoulder. “I don't know if they'll be able to get anything off the hard drive. Might've lost everything.”

Nate made a wordless sound of sympathy. “I'm sorry,” he said and tightened his arm around her. “I know how much this meant to you.” Elena just nodded, not entirely trusting herself to speak. “But there's a chance some stuff might be salvageable?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Well, that's something, right?” Nate pressed a kiss to her hair. “Try not to worry about it too much until you know one way or another.”

Easier said than done, but in this, at least, she knew he was right. “Yeah.” A thought occurred to her, and she managed a half-smile. “At least blowing up Graciano’s munitions dump will slow them down for a while.”

Nate laughed. “True.”

They stayed like that for a few moments, quiet and leaning against each other, before Elena spoke again. “You need a shower.”

“So do you,” Nate replied.

She chuckled. “Any other circumstances and I'd suggest we share, but...”

“One of us would collapse and take out the other, and explaining that to Sully and Chloe would just be awkward,” Nate finished. “Yeah. I know.”

Elena smiled and shook her head. She halfway reached for her mug, then let her arm drop. “Coffee's so far away.”

“I got it,” Nate said and sat forward. “Gotta finish making mine, anyway.” He passed her cup over, then went back to pouring sugar into his. Elena took a drink and sighed. She needed to call her producer and explain the situation, start looking for flights back home, at some point drag herself into the shower... but that could all wait a little while. Nate leaned back against the couch, mug in hand, and Elena settled in against his side again. For right now, this was enough.

*

_Epilogue_

_Miami, Florida – One Week Later_

Elena half-closed the bedroom door behind her and dialed the phone. It rang twice before Sully picked up. “Hey, sweetheart, how's it going?”

“Uh... okay,” she replied and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, Sully. I love Nate a lot, and I know that I'd regret it if I killed him and buried his body in the backyard.”

Sully was quiet for a second. “Uh-huh.”

“I am about to do something very regrettable.”

He chuckled. “This is the first time you've had to put up with Nate being immobilized by injury, isn't it.”

“Elena!” Nate whined loudly from elsewhere in the house. “I'm bored! There's nothing to read!”

She took a deep, calming breath. “Please come over here and entertain him for a couple hours so I don't smother him to death with a pillow.” Sully made a vaguely uncertain sound, and Elena threw down her ace. “I'll make you dinner,” she offered.

He laughed again. “I know a good bribe when I hear one,” he said. “I'll pick up beer on the way over.”

“Victor Sullivan, you are the best father-in-law a woman could ask for,” Elena said fervently.

He snorted. “Don't thank me yet. I know how obnoxious he gets. You're gonna owe me.”

“Worth it.” Elena heard the distinct sound of someone limping down the hall, and she sighed. “Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go steal Nate's crutches.”

“That is not gonna keep him on the couch.”

“I can dream.”


End file.
